BooksBarbecue
Back Whistle
Chapters (73)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. Part IAnnie
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Part IIHarry
  13. Eight
  14. Nine
  15. Ten
  16. Eleven
  17. Twelve
  18. Thirteen
  19. Fourteen
  20. Fifteen
  21. Sixteen
  22. Seventeen
  23. Eighteen
  24. Nineteen
  25. Twenty
  26. Twenty-One
  27. Part IIIAnnie
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. Twenty-Four
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. Twenty-Seven
  34. Twenty-Eight
  35. Twenty-Nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-One
  38. Thirty-Two
  39. Part IVHarry
  40. Thirty-Three
  41. Thirty-Four
  42. Thirty-Five
  43. Thirty-Six
  44. Thirty-Seven
  45. Thirty-Eight
  46. Thirty-Nine
  47. Forty
  48. Forty-One
  49. Forty-Two
  50. Forty-Three
  51. Forty-Four
  52. Forty-Five
  53. Forty-Six
  54. Forty-Seven
  55. Forty-Eight
  56. Part VAnnie
  57. Forty-Nine
  58. Fifty
  59. Fifty-One
  60. Fifty-Two
  61. Fifty-Three
  62. Fifty-Four
  63. Fifty-Five
  64. Fifty-Six
  65. Fifty-Seven
  66. Fifty-Eight
  67. Fifty-Nine
  68. Sixty
  69. Sixty-One
  70. Acknowledgments
  71. About the Author
  72. Also by Linwood Barclay
  73. About the Publisher

Nearly two and half decades after a freight train on the Albany & Bennington line derailed in Lucknow, Vermont, killing more than 4,000 people when a cloud of chlorine gas descended on the town, lawsuits continue to drag their way through the courts.

Several investigations conducted since the accident have cast doubt on whether the train went off the tracks because of an overheated bearing on one of the tanker cars, and have instead focused on whether defective track issues were at the heart of the catastrophe. But given that the Albany & Bennington railroad company went bankrupt in the wake of the disaster, just whom to sue and hold responsible for the damages, which run into the billions of dollars, has remained elusive.

What is not in question is the fact that Lucknow remains a ghost town. When the train went off the rails and several tanker cars exploded into a mushroom-type cloud that could be seen and heard miles away, a large number of homes situated near the event were destroyed. But even people who lived blocks away died from exposure to the chlorine gas.

The homes remain empty to this day, reminding many of the fallout from the Love Canal disaster, near Buffalo, when an entire neighborhood had to be abandoned after 20,000 tons of chemical waste and pesticides leaked into homes and—

Annie stopped reading.

“Ghost town,” she said under the breath.

Lucknow was a ghost town. No one lived there. The place had been abandoned. There was, according to what she read, nothing there.

No. No, that wasn’t possible. What was the point of Charlie heading to Lucknow if there was nothing there to go to?

Annie rested her head on the top of the steering wheel and began to shake.

Fifty

Charlie could not recall ever being this excited.

When he went to bed, he knew this would be the night. He would have to be very quiet not to wake his mother. He didn’t just have to get dressed and slip out of the house unnoticed, he needed to prepare. That meant going down to the kitchen and packing up as much food as he could carry in a backpack. It was too bad about what happened to his mother’s friend, Finnegan, but the good news was he’d brought lots of good stuff for them to eat from New York, especially the bagels. He grabbed six. Charlie didn’t want to take the time to cut them and put peanut butter on them. He’d pack that stuff, and a knife from the kitchen drawer, and take it with him.